Edgar Allan Poe's
The Pit and the Pendulum

DVD Sleeve Signed by Screenplay
Author Richard Matheson

MGM Home Entertainment DVD

Description: In addition to meeting actors and other movie/tv people at science fiction conventions and book festivals, I also attended a number of Hollywood Celebrity shows where you could get memorabilia signed by actors for a (usually) reasonable fee. I was fortunate enough to meet Richard Matheson at a couple of conventions and several book signings. The DVD sleeve is signed by screenplay author Richard Matheson without inscription or personalization on the reverse blank side.

About the movie: The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1961 horror film directed by Roger Corman, starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, and Luana Anders. The screenplay by Richard Matheson was loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story of the same name. Set in sixteenth-century Spain, the story is about a young Englishman who visits a foreboding castle to investigate his sister's mysterious death. After a series of horrific revelations, apparently ghostly appearances and violent deaths, the young man becomes strapped to the titular torture device by his lunatic brother-in-law during the film's climactic sequence.

The film was the second title in the popular series of Poe adaptations released by American International Pictures, the first having been Corman's House of Usher released the previous year. Like House, the film features widescreen cinematography by Floyd Crosby, sets designed by art director Daniel Haller, and a film score composed by Les Baxter. A critical and box-office hit, Pit's success convinced AIP and Corman to continue adapting Poe stories for another six films, five of them starring Price. The series ended in 1964 with the release of The Tomb of Ligeia.

Plot (partial): In 1547 Spain, Englishman Francis Barnard visits the castle of his brother-in-law, Nicholas Medina, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his sister, Elizabeth. Nicholas and his younger sister, Catherine, offer a vague explanation that Elizabeth died from a rare blood disorder three months earlier; Nicholas is evasive when Francis asks for specific details. Francis vows not to leave until he discovers the truth behind his sister's death.

Francis again asks about his sister's death during dinner with the family physician, Dr. Leon. Dr. Leon tells him that his sister died of massive heart failure, literally "dying of fright". Francis demands to see where Elizabeth died. Nicholas takes him to the castle's torture chamber. Nicholas reveals that Elizabeth became obsessed with the chamber's torture devices under the influence of the castle's "heavy atmosphere". After becoming progressively unbalanced, she locked herself into an iron maiden, and died after whispering the name "Sebastian" one day. Francis refuses to believe Nicholas's story.

Condition: Fine, DVD case a little dusty from sitting on the shelf, I don't see any scratching on the DVD.

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